


Intro to Nerve Conduction studies

by escapetheneedforsleep



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Held Down, M/M, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25869835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapetheneedforsleep/pseuds/escapetheneedforsleep
Summary: Troy remembers why he didn't want to watch The Sword in the Stone anymore.
Relationships: Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	Intro to Nerve Conduction studies

**Author's Note:**

> I did it again, cause i'm just starved i guess
> 
> (Also this may or may not be based on my relationship with this movie)

Troy was sitting on the bed when Abed came home. He heard the clanging of keys in the lock, the opening and closing of the door. He didn’t know exactly how he knew beforehand that it was Abed and not Annie. He thought maybe it was something about the speed at which the door opened, or maybe the weight of the footsteps when he walked into the apartment. In the end, it didn’t matter, because he just knew it was him.

“Hey, Abed!” he called through the wall. Mostly it was to let Abed know where he was, but also so he could hear his voice call him back - to make sure he was happy before he could see his face. 

“Hey, Troy!” he heard back from the kitchen. That was a happy voice. He knew that. Again, he wasn’t entirely sure how he knew, he just did. It was instinctive. It was probably the same way that Abed always knew what Troy was thinking or what he wanted to watch or where he wanted to be kissed or how--

“Hey,” Abed said again, shaking Troy out of his stream of consciousness. He was standing in the door, looking at Troy. Troy had been right, Abed was happy. “What are you doing?”

Troy looked down at his lap where he was holding a pile of clothes. “Oh, yeah, I just came from drama class and Professor Garrity thinks I should play Arthur in the school’s production of The Sword in the Stone.” He held a shirt so Abed could see, “This is the costume.”

“Cool!” said Abed, “You’d be a good Arthur. We should watch that movie tonight!”

“The Disney one? Yeah, I loved that one!” 

“Yeah,” Abed contemplated for a second, “Your play will probably not be very much like that one, but I love that movie too.” 

After a somewhat lengthy discussion of just how different the play was going to be from the movie, (Troy’s main concern being whether they would be able to convincingly replicate Merlin and Arthur transforming into squirrels,) Abed went to find the movie from a very buried box, in which he apparently kept a lot of movies Troy hadn’t seen since early childhood. The movie was on a VHS tape, which made Troy feel a bit weird inside, but Abed still had a tape player hooked up to the TV. 

“Oh, this needs to be re-winded,” Abed said, looking disappointedly down at the tape as though it could help it. 

Troy pouted slightly, then said, “Hey, it’s okay, I’ll go make popcorn while we wait!” He gave Abed, who now looked happy again, a quick kiss on the forehead. Troy ran into the kitchen and fished out a bag of micro-wave popcorn from the top drawer. While he stood in front of the micro-wave, looking at the bag spin, his mind went back to that scene with the squirrels, trying to figure out a way to make the transformation look cool on a stage. He thought that maybe if they used a smoke machine, they could make it work. Then they just had to train the squirrels to do that scene without running away. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?

Troy froze. He had suddenly remembered why he hadn’t watched that movie since he was little. It was that one scene. Whenever he would watch it with his mother, he would get all uncomfortable sitting there next to her, watching it. But it was going to be fine, right? He was an adult now, after all. He was over that childish stuff now. 

“Troy?” Abed called from the bedroom. Troy looked up to see that the micro-wave had already ding-ed, and the bag was puffed. 

He tried his best to shake the scene from his head. 

“Coming!” he yelled back, quickly grabbing the bag and pouring the contents into a bowl. 

When Troy re-entered the bedroom, Abed was already sitting up against a heap of pillows, ready with the remote. He patted the blanket-covered floor in front of him, between his legs. Abed knew that Troy liked to sit up against him when they watched movies, because sometimes Abed would start playing with his hair or rub his back, and Troy loved that. Today however, Troy was suddenly a little nervous about this particular seating arrangement. He sat down in front of Abed anyway, trying to relax into the familiar warmth of Abed’s chest. The movie started. 

Twenty minutes into the movie, Troy had sunken into Abed completely. The moment Abed had started to massage his scalp, suddenly all other thoughts had flown out of him. By now, Abed had both of his hands on Troy’s shoulders, massaging the sore dance-muscles there. Troy was watching the movie with as much concentration as he could muster while experiencing what, he thought, must be what a massage In heaven felt like. 

Then, that one scene Troy had been dreading came on screen: Merlin had successfully transformed himself and Arthur into squirrels. Troy was suddenly aware of the movie again. He tried to avoid tensing up, but apparently, he failed because after a little while, when the on-screen Merlin was trying to get away from the lady squirrel, Abed paused the movie. 

“Troy, are you okay? You seem more tense than when I started.” 

Shit.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine! Why?” He’d already said why. 

“Do you want me to stop with the shoulder thing? Did it hurt?” Troy could hear the vulnerability in Abed’s voice, and shit that was worse. He had to just suck it up and tell him. 

“No, Abed, please don’t ever stop with the shoulder thing, that is amazing,” he started, “Um, no, it’s- it’s that squirrel scene. It’s- it’s dumb, I’m just being childish. You can just un-pause it.”

“A lot of things we do are considered childish to other people,” Abed argued.

“Yeah, but it’s a different kind of childish, just - that scene, it’s- it’s like three seconds of it, I’ll be fine-”

“Troy.” Abed had turned Troy by the shoulders to look at him directly. 

Troy looked down, defeated, “You promise you won’t laugh, right?” 

Abed looked confused, “I’d never laugh at you.”

“Yeah, I know… it’s just- it’s pretty embarrassing, I guess… So,” Troy sighed, “You know in that scene we were watching, where Merlin is a squirrel and he meets that other squirrel who tries to like get with him or whatever, and Arthur is with that other squirrel, they can do all that squirrel stuff like climb up trees and-- sorry, not the point.” He shook his head, “Anyway, there’s like this tiny bit where the other squirrel, like… tickles Merlin… and when I used to watch that when I was little, I like, just used to get, like, um, like that…”

“Why?” Abed had tilted his head.

“I don’t know, I guess I kinda ... wanttobetickled? Maybe! I don’t know, I- forget I said anything!” Troy sat back, trying to act like he hadn’t just told his boyfriend that he wanted to be tickled?!! Who said something like that? Who wanted that? Abed must be thinking he’s so weird right now, why did they have to watch that stupid movie anyway?? 

He tried to lean against Abed again, but now he was even more tense, so he didn’t so much lean as he tilted slightly backwards. Abed didn’t say anything. After a few seconds, Troy could sense him reaching for the remote again. The picture un-froze. As the scene that Troy had been describing began unfolding on the screen, Abed still did not say a word. Troy was still cringing all the way into where he thought his soul must be. The scene changed and Troy way still stiff as a board against Abed’s chest, but as the movie kept playing, and as Abed still had not said anything, Troy decided to try and relax again, and just to pretend nothing had happened. 

After sitting like that for a while, Troy felt Abed’s hands on him again, and he started to somewhat genuinely relax as the fingers started to massage his shoulders again. Those two hands really were magic, he thought. They could make him do anything. His mind finally started to wander away from the movie. 

Then, suddenly, he became aware that Abed’s hands were no longer on his shoulders but had instead travelled down to his sides, where they were massaging in the same way they had been before, but getting lighter and lighter. Troy started to squirm slightly in Abed’s lap, his body inadvertently trying to get away from the suddenly very firm grip on his sides. Oh no. Troy started giggling, his body spasming uncontrollably as Abed threw his legs around his waist, keeping him in place.

“Wa-ha-ihihit!!” he managed to get through the wall of giggles that were pouring from his mouth. He wiggled frantically, trying to get away but somehow also really glad that Abed was so strong.

Abed didn’t wait. Instead he ceased Troy’s arms and held them both up by the wrist in one hand, while he moved the other up to Troy’s armpit. At this, Troy convulsed with such force that he managed to escape Abed’s grip on his wrists. The legs, however, were still wrapped around him tightly. Abed’s hand was now trapped under Troy’s arm, which he had reflexively clamped down when he got free. Now, he could feel Abed’s fingers wiggling away in there, and he couldn’t lift his arm. All he could do was laugh. 

Suddenly Abed released Troy from his legs and flipped them over so he was now straddling Troy, sitting on his legs. He put his hands up Troy’s shirt and started kneading away at his toned stomach, making Troy do an involuntary sit-up before falling down onto the floor, dissolving completely into laughter. Abed eased up a little, letting Troy breathe before moving quickly again. He got off Troy’s legs and turned so that he was now sitting on Troy’s hips, facing away from him. 

“A-ha-bed, w-what-“ Troy was cut off by four fingers digging into his inner thigh, sending him into a new wave of even higher-pitched laughter than before. He stayed by Troy’s legs for a good while, constantly moving so that Troy couldn’t possibly pick up a pattern. First kneading at his thigh, next pinching his knee, next moving up to where his leg met with his hip, holding down the leg to keep it taut. 

When Troy was just barely a babbling mess, Abed finally let up. He climbed off of Troy and held out a hand to help him sit. Troy was still giggling as he tried to catch his breath. 

“Do you want some water?” Abed offered, casually, as if he hadn’t been wrecking Troy to the brink of almost peeing himself just a few moments ago. 

Troy swallowed and nodded. Abed stood up and ran out of the bedroom, and moments later he returned with a glass of water. Troy drank in between gasps for breath. That was more exhausting than football had ever been, he thought. 

It was several minutes before Troy could speak. “How the hell d’you get so good at tickling?” was the first thing he could say. 

“I don’t know,” Abed answered. “Just observant, I guess. I could see what made you laugh and what didn’t. It’s a pretty good indicator of when something tickles.” 

“Why did you do that?”

“You said you wanted to be tickled. At least that’s what I got from what you said, you weren’t entirely clear, but you also seemed to be ashamed of it so I thought you would want to know that you had nothing to be ashamed of.” Abed said, matter-of-factly. 

“So… but- you, I” Troy was flustered again, trying to find a question that would get him the answers that he wanted. “So… You didn’t think that was weird? For me to want to be tickled?”

“Why would I think you were weird? And why would that be a bad thing?” Abed had tilted his head again.

“I don’t know, people don’t usually want to be tickled.” Troy said sheepishly, looking down.

“Troy.” Abed reached out a hand to grab Troy’s chin. “I never want to do anything that people usually do with you.”

Troy couldn’t help but grin, as he reached up, despite his aching muscles, to give Abed a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! I'm still getting into writing, so any feedback or kudos is always welcome <3


End file.
